silver planning to relinquish speaker duties - The New York Times

CMYK

Nxxx,2015-01-26,A,001,Bs-BK,E2_+

Late Edition Today, snow, breezy, colder, high 28. Tonight, heavy snow, blizzard conditions, low 21. Tomorrow, blizzard conditions early, 1 to 2 feet of snow, high 23. Weather map, Page D8.

VOL. CLXIV . . . No. 56,758 +

$2.50

NEW YORK, MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 2015

© 2015 The New York Times

Greeks Vote In SILVER PLANNING Austerity Foes, TO RELINQUISH A Major Shift

SPEAKER DUTIES

Leftists Vow to Change Conditions of Bailout ON A TEMPORARY BASIS By JIM YARDLEY and LIZ ALDERMAN

STEPHEN CROWLEY/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Pomp and Progress in India President Obama arriving Sunday in India. He and Prime Minister Narendra Modi broke an impasse on nuclear plants. Page A5.

To Collect Debts, Seizing Control Over Patients Saudis Expand By NINA BERNSTEIN

Lillian Palermo tried to prepare for the worst possibilities of aging. An insurance executive with a Ph.D. in psychology and a love of ballroom dancing, she arranged for her power of attorney and health care proxy to go to her husband, Dino, eight years her junior, if she became incapacitated. And in her 80s, she did. Mr. Palermo, who was the lead singer in a Midtown nightclub in the 1960s when her elegant tango first caught his eye, now regularly rolls his wife’s wheelchair to the piano at the Catholic nursing home in Manhattan where she ended up in 2010 as dementia, falls and surgical complications

Nursing Homes Use Guardianship Law to Fight Families took their toll. He sings her favorite songs, feeds her home-cooked Italian food, and pays a private aide to be there when he cannot. But one day last summer, after he disputed nursing home bills that had suddenly doubled Mrs. Palermo’s copays, and complained about inexperienced employees who dropped his wife on the floor, Mr. Palermo was shocked to find a six-page legal document waiting on her bed.

It was a guardianship petition filed by the nursing home, Mary Manning Walsh, asking the court to give a stranger full legal power over Mrs. Palermo, now 90, and complete control of her money. Few people are aware that a nursing home can take such a step. Guardianship cases are difficult to gain access to and poorly tracked by New York State courts; cases are often closed from public view for confidentiality. But the Palermo case is no aberration. Interviews with veterans of the system and a review of guardianship court data conducted by researchers at Hunter College at the request of The New York Times show the practice has become routine, underscoring Continued on Page A3

PIOTR REDLINSKI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Dino and Lillian Palermo at the Mary Manning Walsh Nursing Home in Manhattan in October.

Sway in Region As Others Falter By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

CAIRO — The rulers of Saudi Arabia trembled when the Arab Spring revolts broke out four years ago. But far from undermining the Saudi dynasty, the ensuing chaos across the region appears instead to have lifted the monarchy to unrivaled power and influence. As a new king assumes the throne in Riyadh, the stability-first authoritarianism that the Saudis have long favored is resurgent from Tunis to Cairo to Manama. The election-minded Islamists that the Saudis once feared are on the run. Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the interior minister who spearheaded the push against them, was rewarded last week with his elevation to deputy crown prince, the first in his generation in the line of succession. The catch, analysts and diplomats say, is that the ascendance of the Saudis is largely a byproduct of the feebleness or nearcollapse of so many of the states around them, including Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and Tunisia. And the perseverance of the old order is largely dependent on a steady flow of Saudi resources, so their influence may be costly. The Saudis are propping up the Kingdom of Bahrain, and are fighting alongside the United States to support the government Continued on Page A8

ATHENS — Greece rejected the harsh economics of austerity on Sunday and sent a warning to the rest of Europe as the leftwing Syriza party won a decisive victory in national elections, positioning its tough-talking leader, Alexis Tsipras, to become the next prime minister. With almost 98 percent of the vote counted, Syriza had 36 percent, almost nine points more than the governing center-right New Democracy party of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who conceded defeat. The only uncertainty was whether Syriza would muster a parliamentary majority on its own or have to form a coalition. Appearing before a throng of supporters outside Athens University late Sunday, Mr. Tsipras, 40, declared that the era of austerity was over and promised to revive the economy. He also said his government would not allow Greece’s creditors to strangle the country. “Greece will now move ahead with hope and reach out to Europe, and Europe is going to change,” he said. “The verdict is clear: We will bring an end to the vicious circle of austerity.” Syriza’s victory is a milestone for Europe. Continuing economic weakness has stirred a populist backlash from France to Spain to Italy, with more voters growing fed up with policies that require sacrifice to meet the demands of creditors but that have not delivered more jobs and prosperity. Syriza is poised to become the first anti-austerity party to take power in a eurozone country and to shatter the two-party establishment that has dominated Greek politics for four decades. “Democracy will return to Greece,” Mr. Tsipras said to a swarm of journalists as he cast his ballot in Athens. “The message is that our common future in Europe is not the future of austerity.” Youthful and seemingly imperturbable, Mr. Tsipras has worked to soften his image as an antiEuropean Union radical, joking that his opponents had accused him of everything but stealing other men’s wives. On the campaign trail, he has promised to clean up Greece’s corrupt political system, overhaul the country’s public administration and reduce the tax burden on the middle class while cracking down on tax evasion by the country’s oligarchical business class. But his biggest promise — and the one that has stirred deep Continued on Page A10

Unusual Strategy Amid Pressure as He Fights Graft Charges By SUSANNE CRAIG and THOMAS KAPLAN

ALBANY — Sheldon Silver, the longtime speaker of the New York State Assembly, agreed on Sunday to relinquish his duties on a temporary basis as he fights federal corruption charges. His decision came amid mounting pressure from his fellow Democrats in the Assembly, who worried that the criminal charges would impair his ability to carry out the duties of one of the most powerful positions in the state’s government. In an unusual arrangement, Mr. Silver would not quit his post. Instead, he would temporarily delegate his duties as speaker to a group of senior Assembly members. Under the plan, which the Assembly’s Democratic caucus is to consider in a closed-door meeting on Monday afternoon, Mr. Silver would “not specifically step down, but step back,” according to a person briefed on the situation, who insisted on anonymity because the plan had not yet been presented to the caucus. Immediately after Mr. Silver’s arrest on Thursday, Democrats in the Assembly rallied behind him. Mr. Silver, who has proved adept over the years at withstanding ethical and legal scrutiny, predicted he would be vindicated. But in the past few days, as legislators conferred and newspaper editorials called for Mr. Silver’s resignation, some members of his caucus grew convinced that he could not continue to be effective in his post with the cloud of scandal hanging over him. Assembly Democrats faced some urgency because negotiations on the state budget, which must be finished by April 1, are getting underway. “He is resolved to fight the case, but realized doing the budget while doing the case would be a distraction,” said a person involved in the discussions this weekend who was not authorized to speak on the record because of the sensitive nature of the talks. Under the tentative plan developed on Sunday, the Assembly majority leader, Joseph D. Morelle of the Rochester area, and the chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, Herman D. Farrell Jr., Democrat of Manhattan, would assume responsibility for budget negotiaContinued on Page A16

In ’79 Case, Defense Will Argue Christie on Air: Undiluted and Pretty Great, if He Says So Himself (Mitt Romney) or too cerebral Another Man Killed Etan Patz (Jeb Bush). By MICHAEL BARBARO

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

He sits in a jail cell in Brooklyn, waiting for a trial that prosecutors promise will finally deliver justice for the murder of 6-yearold Etan Patz — a child-abduction case that panicked parents and gripped New York City through the summer of 1979. At the time of Etan’s disappearance in May that year, the man lived in a tenement on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a few blocks from where the boy was last seen. He had a connection to Etan: He had dated his babysitter. And on that same day that Etan vanished, the man picked up a boy in Washington Square

Park and took him to his apartment for sex, he later told investigators. The man, now a convicted child molester, said he believed the boy was Etan. For years, the Patz family considered the man, Jose A. Ramos, to be Etan’s killer. The boy’s parents even filed a successful civil suit against him for wrongful death. Yet when the long-awaited case begins in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, with opening arguments scheduled as early as this week, a different man — Pedro Hernandez — will be on Continued on Page A22

EWING, N.J. — They call to complain about their pension payments, to grumble about their children’s teachers, to vent about the fine they just paid for stacking firewood incorrectly. They dial in by the thousands, from Toms River to Park Ridge, jamming the five phone lines here at the studio of WKXW-FM (101.5). What the people of New Jersey receive in return is the unfiltered id of their governor, Chris Christie: over-sharing, thin-skinned, openhearted and needy. It is the quality, repellent or endearing, that his supporters say is missing from the buttoned-up rivals now crowding the Republican presidential field, whose demeanor they quietly dismiss as too stilted

When Chris from Camden, wanted to know why the governor was giving firefighters like himself such a hard time about their salaries, Mr. Christie turned the conversation into a scorching interrogation. “What are you making now?” the governor demanded. The answer, $72,000, struck him as suspiciously low, given the contractual perks afforded firefighters. “No, no, no, Chris. Don’t play games me with me now. What do you make?” When Debbie in Roxbury called to congratulate Mr. Christie on a budget address in which he had pledged no new taxes, Mr. Christie paused to gloat about the superiority of his speechwriting skills, concluding that they surContinued on Page A12

RICHARD PERRY/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey on WKXW’s “Ask the Governor.” On Tuesday he is to announce a new PAC. Page A12.

NATIONAL A11-13

NATIONAL

BUSINESS DAY B1-7

NEW YORK

SPORTSMONDAY D1-7

Navajo (Heavy Metal) Bands

Supreme Court’s Lethal Gap

Middle Class Shrinks Further

A Blocked View in Brooklyn

There’s No ‘I’ in ‘Bench’

By day, Edmund Yazzie is a delegate to the Navajo Nation Council, but he spends many of his nights as a drummer for Testify, one of the tribe’s several PAGE A11 heavy metal bands.

Death penalty opponents are focusing on the Supreme Court’s lethal gap — that it takes four votes to hear a case, but five to stay an execution. PAGE A13

Since 2000, the middle-class share of households has continued to narrow, the main reason being that more people PAGE B1 have fallen to the bottom.

A new hotel and condominium complex rising in Brooklyn Bridge Park, below, has blocked views of the bridge and Manhattan from the Brooklyn Heights PAGE A14 Promenade.

INTERNATIONAL A4-10

The Boss Is Back at Bloomberg

In a continuing quest to discover quality basketball, a reporter who normally covers the uninspiring Knicks visits the Golden State Warriors, whose reserves are stocked with talented team players — among them the former N.B.A. AllStars David Lee and Andre Iguodala.

Two Captives, Different Paths The lives that led two Japanese hostages to their captivity in Syria could not have been more different. PAGE A9

Michael Bloomberg has moved quickly to reassert control of the media operation at the company he founded. PAGE B1

PAGE D1

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A20-21 NEW YORK A14-17, 22

Nigerian City Is Attacked

Region Braces for Blizzard

Boko Haram militants attacked Maiduguri, a major city in Nigeria’s northeast, PAGE A6 before being repulsed.

As deep snow and powerful winds were forecast, officials called for caution and PAGE A16 warned of closings.

Charles M. Blow

PAGE A21

U(D54G1D)y+z!,!#!=!,